The New York Tombs Inside and Out! / Scenes and Reminiscences Coming Down to the Present. A Story Stranger Than Fiction, with an Historic Account of America's Most Famous Prison.

by John Josiah Munro

Dark Records

In the following sketch I have selected crooks of maturer years. They are types of modern brainy criminals. I have said nothing of Orrin Skinner, the well read Illinois lawyer who became a jailbird in early life and afterwards died in Auburn prison, nor of Rue Ralley, the scholarly criminal who was master of several languages; nor of other well known crooks who got away with millions of dollars from several New York banks. I have said nothing of “Jimmie” Hope, who robbed the Bleecker Street Bank of three million dollars, and was called the Prince of Safe Crackers and who at one time was said to be worth a big fortune, the “pickings” of several bank burglaries; nor of the young crook who went boldly to a Broadway Bank at the noon hour and with only an empty soap box under his feet, leaned over the cashier’s cage and got away with $10,000. But the city is full of such bold crooks who simply wait their chances.

It must be an awful insult to the Almighty, after he had so liberally endowed such people, some of them with the intellect of a Webster or a Gladstone, for them to use their powers only to do evil and refuse to do good. But this is precisely what a habitual criminal makes up his mind to do when he continues in wrongdoing against the wishes of his best friends.

A middle-aged criminal who has made a dark record as a thief and liar since he was ten years old was taken to the prison desk in my presence to give his pedigree, as is the custom with all who are committed by the Magistrate to await trial. When asked his name, age and business, he replied, “I am forty-five years of age. I have no home but the Penitentiary and a ten-cent Bowery lodging house which I use when I am not in prison. I am a thief by profession and have followed that business nearly all my life. As I positively refuse to work I mean to be a thief till I die, and will compel the State to support me.”

There are hundreds of this class possessing the same delusion in all our cities, who do nothing but steal for a living and then cover their evil conduct by lies. They are insanely depraved and should be locked up permanently, as they are of no use to anybody. They are social parasites and enemies of the race.

And yet I am forced to say that some of the brightest and brainiest of men that I ever knew in their sober moments, were crooks. I have tried to study them to see how and where they differ from other men—and that is no ordinary task. Whether I succeeded or not remains to be seen. In some cases, after many patient interviews I was able to draw them out of the dark and gloomy past, where I could read their character in its true light. Although many of this class are exceedingly interesting as conversationalists and unusually intelligent on the great questions of the day, I find they are never willing to disclose their identity or reveal their inner life. A crook never gives his right name when placed under arrest—always an alias. His deeds are done in darkness.

One of the most forbidding faces ever I saw in my life was that of Terry R—— who died in the New York Penitentiary a few years ago. He was a hardened character. During his life he had eleven convictions for crime recorded against him, extending over twenty-five years. I carefully observed that during his last years he became sullen, revengeful, despondent and suspicious of everybody. Terry was a living example of that terse old Scripture passage, “The way of the transgressor is hard.”

Speaking of lies, which are the ordinary stock in trade of all criminals, reminds me of Frank McKenna’s experience. Some years ago he was sent to the House of Refuge for a year. That was before the principle of the indefinite sentence was applied to such institutions. A few days after his discharge he committed a crime similar to the one for which he had been originally sent away, viz., holding up a child on the street and taking away her wallet. For this second offense he was in due season indicted; when he was taken to Part I, General Sessions, Recorder Smyth asked if he had ever been in the House of Refuge; he replied in the negative. “Well, then,” said the Recorder, “I will send you there for a year.” On the day following he was taken to the House of Refuge but they refused to receive him as he had been an inmate of the institution and was only discharged a few weeks before. When he came before Recorder Smyth the following Tuesday, he asked him if he really meant to have told him a lie on the preceding Friday, when he sentenced him; without a moment’s hesitation he said “Yes.” “Then,” said the genial Recorder, “for this lie which you have told me, I will give you four years imprisonment and for the crime charged against you in the indictment one year.” Since then McKenna has served several sentences for crime. He is a bad crook.

Before he left the Penitentiary the last time, a well known missionary became interested in him. This gentleman secured for him a suit of clothes and gave him a few dollars to pay for meals and lodgings for a few days. Since then he has entirely disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him. But where he has gone no one knows.

Another well known character, whose career goes back some years, was Captain Jack of the Cuban Army. The Captain was a native of Virginia, was a well educated young man inclined to adventure; he had been in Cuba several years fighting the Spaniards under Gomez. After the blowing up of the Maine and the United States had occupied Havana, Jack returned to New York on one of the transports. He had in his possession four or five hundred dollars besides a railroad ticket to his home in the South. While wandering along West Street, waiting for the departure of the Pennsylvania train, he was inveigled into a disorderly house where he lost all his money and valuables. When the Captain came to himself and missed his property he made a demand on the saloon keeper for its return. The saloon occupied the front of the building and the disorderly house the rear. When he asked for his money there was some loud talk in the place and as a result Captain Jack was “fired.” As soon as he reached the sidewalk he was arrested and taken to the Church Street Station House. In the Centre Street Police Court next day after hearing the policeman’s version of the trouble, the Magistrate fined him five dollars. Up till this time Captain Jack had nothing to say by way of explanation of his side of the case. When he returned to the Tombs he told me his story as he was mourning over his loss. He was grieved over the shameful treatment he received, as he was only put under arrest when he demanded the return of his property. I went over to the Police Court and laid the facts in the case before Judge Flammer who had sentenced Jack, but had not known anything of his loss. At the suggestion of the Magistrate I communicated with the Second Precinct police and asked why Captain Jack was arrested while the thieves that stole his money went scot free. Captain Westervelt put Detective Mooney on the case, but nothing came of it. The police kept Jack in a down town hotel for a few days and then raised money among themselves to buy a railroad ticket and sent him home to Virginia. The following year Jack came to New York and was in trouble again. This time he was charged with “beating” the Broadway Central people out of a board bill. For this offense he was sent to the Penitentiary for three months. In size the Captain is diminutive, voluble of speech, full of weird tales of adventure in Cuba and is not at all too gifted with telling the truth. He returned to Cuba where he was promised a position by his old comrade, General Gomez—as he called him. But of these things I have no personal knowledge and would be unwilling to believe one-fourth of what was said of his past or future.

It looks sometimes like an awful waste of time to do anything—even of a humanitarian character for the average crook who tries to interest you in his welfare with a pack of lies. But I have never refused these people when I thought I could do them any good. I have worked for them in every possible way that I might win their confidence and thus lead them into a better life. I have learned by experience not to believe all a crook says or even a hundredth part of it. It don’t do to allow yourself to be caught napping by these gentry who think they have everything to gain and nothing to lose by a lie.